More like prohibition doesn’t work

You can do PGO with GCC, though it takes extra steps of course

go back to being adults with differences

This is actually a fantasy state. The current situation is a natural step along the road that Republicans have been walking since the 70s. The Christian nationalist take over of the party happened long before trump and I don’t see any reason why it would recede with his departure.

To my knowledge upgrading to the newer release of any of those linux distros was not blocked by having only slightly old and perfectly serviceable hardware.